


Rebirth

by Luthorchickv2



Category: Angels in America - Kushner
Genre: Gen, M/M, Past Domestic Violence, Religious Discussion, The Sistine Chapel, brief mention of AIDS
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-25
Updated: 2018-03-25
Packaged: 2019-04-07 19:14:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 863
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14087790
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Luthorchickv2/pseuds/Luthorchickv2
Summary: Joe Pitt learns to live.





	Rebirth

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this at 1 am right after seeing Angels in America Part 2 with Lee Pace as Joe. I never quite liked Joe as a character but Lee Pace made me look at him different. I needed a more hopeful ending for him. Joe just sits in his chair as Harper walks away to find her own hope. Everyone else spins forward. And so I present to you an ending for Joe, with apologies to Tony Kushner. And if you are able to, go see Angels in America.

Joe stares at the pill bottle in his hand and then slowly sets its aside. He knows that if he falls down that hole he won’t ever climb out. He’s numb. 

He sits in the chair and has no idea what to do next. So he functions. 

He goes to work and tries to lose himself in the law but all he can hear is Louis’ Indictments of his work, his values. 

Louis isn’t at work and Joe doesn’t go looking for him. He doesn’t deserve to not when he can still feel his fist impacting on Louis's face. He goes home and sits in his dark apartment and wants to feel anything. 

He goes to Roy’s funeral and expects to feel anger, hate, guilt, grief but there is nothing, except maybe a vague sense of pity. He wonders how many people are there because they cared about Roy and how many are there for the spectacle of it. He’s positive some are there to make sure the bastard is really dead. 

He goes to beach after, the beach where he stripped bare and feels nothing. None of the joy or sadness of that day is present. There is nothing. 

He watches the waves crash and knows something has to change. He needs to do something. He needs movement. 

It takes him a few days but he gets everything squared away. He quits his job, calls his mother and meets her at a diner. He hands her the keys to apartment and a stack of papers. They are no contest divorce papers. He’s signed them and they are ready if Harper ever wants. He won’t marry again. He wants to tell her that he’s not running anymore but that would be a lie, or part of one. 

He’s not running away, exactly, he thinks as he boards the plane. He’s not running, he’s searching, exploring. Looking for feeling.

He knows Harper is in San Francisco so he heads in the opposite direction. Across the Atlantic, a pilgrimage of sorts. He searches for feeling and kisses a man who isn’t Louis. And sleeps with a man who isn’t Louis. But there is no feeling aside from carnal pleasure. 

He’s in Rome when he feels a stirring. He’s a cliché staring up at a ceiling as God reaches out to Adam, tears streaming down his face. His eyes trace the lines of Michelangelo’s ceiling and he weeps. 

He is reborn in the strong lines and bright colors, a threshold of revelation. He finds forgiveness in a God that creates light and dark, gives Adam life, and who enters into a covenant with Noah. 

He feels free. 

He returns to New York after 6 months of travel and settles in an apartment. He takes a job in a small firm and gets a dog he names Roger. For all New York is a large city it is a very small town and a month after he comes back he spots Louis at a bar with a man who looks oddly familiar. It doesn’t look like a romantic date, as he watches Louis flail around, hands gesticulating wildly. The other man has an indulgent grin on his face as he leans on a hand watching Louis rant. Prior, it comes to him. 

Joe backs out of the bar and walks down the street. He’s let Louis go but still doesn’t want to cause a scene. 

He makes himself have monthly brunches with his mom and he thinks that while he has changed, she was changed even more. She asks if he is seeing someone and offers to help set him up with someone if he isn’t. Joe isn’t sure what to be more surprised by, that she is okay with the idea of him dating a man or that she knows gay young men to set him up with. He doesn’t quite enjoy these brunches but he can see a future where he does. 

He goes on dates and makes friends. He never feels what he did for Louis but maybe that’s a good thing. 

He meets a man one rainy Thursday two years after he wept in a chapel in Italy. David is a journalist collecting stories about the plague. Joe doesn’t tell him about Roy Cohen or Louis. He doesn’t want to betray Roy, even after everything, and what Louis did is Louis’s business. 

David moves in after Joe brings him to the firm’s holiday party. He and Roger have a brief adjustment period that Joe stays out of and that ends with Roger being allowed to sleep at the foot of the bed and David having gnawed-on shoes. And so they build a life together

Five years after Joe loved a man named Louis, Joe loves a man named David. They live in an apartment that looks nothing like the one Joe shared with Harper. Joe works at a small firm and will never rise to the level Roy wanted for him, and Joe’s okay with that. He moved forward, progressed and while he sometimes looks behind at what was, he more often looks forward and is content in all the ways he’s changed.


End file.
